Design for life ... Jonathan Ives' iPhone design is one of many popular nominees. Photograph: Michael Nagle

Uh-oh ... here's another new award described, as all awards in fields of creative endeavour must be, as the "Turner Prize of". Of what, this time? Of international design.

Dreamed up by the Design Museum and sponsored by Brit Insurance, the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year awards - the "Design Brits"? - are aimed at recognising good design in seven different areas worldwide. These lucky seven are architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, "interactive", product and transport. Architecture already has its own "Turner Prize of" award in the guise of the Stirling Prize, but the idea here, I think, is to suggest that the latest, and best, in fashion design or graphics can be viewed on a par with the best, and latest, in product design and architecture. So this is a deliberately populist award, and none the worse for that.

In fact, each of the seven sectors will win an award of its own, while there will be one overall award, announced on March 18 that will, truly, set the design of a website or advert up against that of a new chair or even the sensational "bird's nest" Olympics stadium in Beijing. If this seems in any way odd, it might, I suppose be argued that almost any Charles Eames' chair, for example, is in many ways superior to much run-of-the-mill new architecture, while the latest Fiat 500, or Peter Saville's logo for Kate Moss's new fashion label, is a lot more fun than a new shopping mall or quango-approved housing estate. Saville, by the way, is one of four designers on the list who appears twice; the others are Ron Arad, Jasper Morrison and Thomas Heatherwick.

At heart, the designs nominated are fashionable and fun, although chosen from a select band of countries and continents. There's nothing here from Africa. Nothing from India. Precious little from South America. And some of the nominations have clearly been put in as a joke; someone has suggested "the extension of the Congestion Charge" in London. This is not a design, nor even common sense, but an act of political spite aimed at a Tory borough out of step with the political thinking of the Mayor of London. As one of its effects is the undermining of small businesses, including those in the field of design, this nomination is not funny after all and makes you think twice about some of the rest.

If the award is to be truly popular, its organisers might think of inviting not just their friends to nominate designs, but everyone. It would be genuinely interesting to see what as many people as possible think of as genuinely good new designs; they are very often the ones that end up using them, after all. As for Turner himself, the wealthy Cockney artist did once paint a Great Western Railway Gooch 2-2-2 racing over the viaduct at Maidenhead, so I suppose he had some sort of interest in modern design, or at least, its effects. However, a special prize should be made to the organiser of the next new arts or design award who manages to avoid the name Turner.